Evel Man

Before he wrote for Sports Illustrated and turned to writing books full-time, Leigh Montville was part of  a Murderers Row of Boston Globe sportswriters that included Ray Fitzgerald, a young basketball-crazed Bob Ryan, Will McDonough and Bud Collins.

I'm probably missing someone. Ernie Roberts, who I believe was an editor on the sports desk, led every one of his Saturday columns with "good morning" followed by the breakfast menu for a coach, athlete or fan involved in a big sporting event that day.

"Good morning. Eggs scrambled with sharp cheddar cheese and a touch of Tobasco, three slices of bacon, wheat toast and black coffee for BC football coach Joe Yukica this morning as the Eagles face ..."

The breakfasts always sounded overwhelming but were one more quirky aspect to what was then a killer sports staff. (And still might be today, but I'm not the avid reader I once was.) You HAD to read Ernie Roberts's breakfast menu every Saturday.

Leigh Montville was the joker of the staff (Fitzgerald - whose daughter lives in Hopkinton but I won't embarrass her further than to note that - was more subtly humorous and razor sharp - Larry Bird compared to Dave Cowens).

But Montville made sports come alive at a time they were teetering on irrelevance for Baby Boomers whose rock & roll sensibilities seemed to be rejected by the sports establishment.

Of course, those sensibilities weren't rejected by some of the athletes nor by Montville, the first writer I read who put Led Zepplin lyrics into his columns.

The music-sports connection has become so overdone that a former colleague of mine, the genius (he IS good folks) sportswriter Tom Curran, makes little mention of his encyclopedic musical tastes in his writing or broadcasting. (He works for Comcast sports.) It's simply one in a bag of tools he unobtrusively totes. He knows it's there if he needs it.

But this is about Montville and his new book "Evel: The High-Flying Life of Evel Knievel: American Showman, Daredevil, and Legend."  There may not be a better marriage of author and subject than Montville and Kneivel, who in case you don't know, riveted the attention of pretty much the entire United States decades ago by jumping over things on motorcycles.

Montville's the type of writer who pulls no punches while maintaining empathy for the characters he writes about. It's a sublime talent in a for 'em or agin' 'em world. There was a lot that was repulsive about Knievel, but a lot that was admirable too.

Maybe that's the conflict that made him the superstar that, for a few years, he was. I'm betting Montville has some insights and they're wonderfully told on the pages of this book.